Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless access terminals (ATs). Each AT communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the ATs, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the ATs to the base stations.
There are many possible configuration of the forward link (FL) and reverse link (RL) structure. In order for an AT to start utilizing the full capabilities of a system, the AT must have some knowledge of how the FL and RL are configured. In an OFDMA system, there are many possible configurations of the FL and RL structure. Such as number of guard carries, sub-carriers, number of pilots, etc. Without the FL/RL structure information/parameters, the AT either coming into a new sector or waking up on new sector will not be able receive any information on the FL/RL physical channels. One possible way to solve the problem would be to provide a set of known configurations to the AT and have the AT maintain these configurations in memory. However, the total amount of configuration parameters needed could require a large amount of storage on the AT device. However, even if the AT had the capability to store the required configuration parameters, there would be significant issues when the operator desired to change/modify the configuration throughout all or part of their network. For any new base station or any base station with an new configuration The AT would have to search exhaustively through all the configuration possibilities in order to set up a communication link. Alternatively, the owner of the AT could download the new configuration from another information network or physically go to the operator of system to get the updated the configurations. Therefore there is need for a convenient method of providing FL and RL structure to the AT without requiring time-consuming exhaustive search by the AT. Further, such a solution should enable the network operator to make configuration changes in the network as needed without compromising performance of the AT or placing undue burden on the owner of the AT.